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To read a dissent aloud is an act of theater that justices use to convey their view that the majority is not only mistaken, but profoundly wrong. It happens just a handful of times a year. Justice Antonin Scalia has used the technique to powerful effect, as has Justice Stevens, in a decidedly more low-key manner.

The oral dissent has not been, until now, Justice Ginsburg’s style. She has gone years without delivering one, and never before in her 15 years on the court has she delivered two in one term. In her past dissents, both oral and written, she has been reluctant to breach the court’s collegial norms. “What she is saying is that this is not law, it’s politics,” Pamela S. Karlan, a Stanford law professor, said of Justice Ginsburg’s comment linking the outcome in the abortion case to the fact of the court’s changed membership. “She is accusing the other side of making political claims, not legal claims.”

there are probably no two institutions that are more respectful of tradition, precedents, and norms than courts and legislatures... for justice ginsburg to resort to oral dissents twice already in one term is a strong indicator of very powerful undercurrents among the justices... i am happy and quite disturbed at the same time... happy to hear a justice speaking out in a forceful way and disturbed that she feels the need to do it...

Scott Ritter calls for "repudiation", not impeachment

Any effort to impeach Bush and any of his administration found to be engaged in activities classifiable as "high crimes and misdemeanors" would fail to rein in the unitary executive core of any successor. One only has to listen to the rhetoric of the Democratic candidates for president to understand that this trend is as deeply rooted among them as it is with President Bush. Americans today look for leaders without recognizing the absolute necessity of electing team players. The Founding Fathers deliberately designed the executive branch to be strong and independent, but also made sure, through an elaborate system of checks and balances, that it operated merely as one of three separate but equal branches of government.

[...]

The impeachment of President Bush would not in and of itself terminate executive unilateralism. It would only limit its implementation on the most visible periphery, driving its destructive designs back into the shadows of government, away from the public eye, and as such, public accountability. Impeach President Bush, yes, if in fact he can be charged with the commission of acts which meet the constitutional standard for impeachment (and I believe he could, if Congress only had the will to do its job). But to truly heal America, we must repudiate everything President Bush stands for, in terms of not only public and foreign policy, but also in terms of his style of governance, since the former is derived from the latter.

Repudiation is a strong term, defined as "rejecting as having no authority or binding force," to "cast off or disown," or to "reject with disapproval or condemnation." In my opinion, the complete repudiation of the presidency of George W. Bush is the only recourse we have collectively as a people to not only seek redress for the wrongs committed by the Bush administration, but also to purge society of this cancer that threatens to consume and destroy us as a whole, and which would continue to manifest itself in our system of governance even after any impeachment proceedings.

[...]

I fear not the bloody rebellion of an outraged citizenry, but rather the passive submission of a shameful mass which betrays the cause of liberty and freedom through the abandonment of the Constitution, and the obligations of citizenship derived thereof, in favor of the narcotic of consumerism. Such a mass, foreswearing blind obedience to those who profess how to best construct a cocoon that immerses the occupant in transitory comfort, is the most pressing problem facing America today. In a nation whose defining document begins, "We the People," I find that it is we the people who constitute the greatest threat to the future of America. It is not through the force of our actions, but rather the vacuum created by our inaction and apathy, a vacuum all too readily filled by those who would have us exchange our hard-fought freedoms for a gilded cage of market-driven consumerism.

This is the main reason why I am not a proponent of the 'impeach now' mentality so prevalent in political circles that oppose George W. Bush. The expediency of impeachment simply replaces one source of tyranny (President Bush) with another (whomever replaces him). It is not the failures of an individual that have gotten us to where we are today, but rather the failure of the collective.

[...]

Today one only needs to observe the corruption of our rulers and the carelessness of our people to understand the significance of the Constitution when it comes to preserving these United States of America. The nefarious nature of the Bush cancer is that, in its infection of the American system, it seeks to draw legitimacy for its tyrannical actions by citing the very same Constitution it seeks to destroy.

ok, scott, i buy all that... so, what do we DO...?

Repudiate the notion of a "unitary executive."

Repudiate presidential signing statements.

Repudiate executive violation of Article 6 of the Constitution, which binds municipal law in America with binding treaty obligations incurred when the Senate ratifies a treaty or agreement by a two-thirds majority or better.

Repudiate "faith-based initiatives" pushed by any branch of government.

Repudiate a weak Congress.

Repudiate weak senators or representatives, especially those with a track record of abrogating their constitutional mandate.

Repudiate ignorance, especially that of the American citizen who knows little or nothing about the Constitution which empowers him or her.

Repudiate consumerism, especially the virulent form it takes in the selfish framework of American-centric capitalism.

Repudiate pre-emptive wars of aggression.

Repudiate American Empire.

and then...?

Instead, embrace the empowerment of education. Embrace active citizenship. Embrace the rule of law, as set forth by the Constitution. Do all of this and, in the end, if conditions and circumstance warrant, impeach President Bush and any of those in his administration so deserving.

while i certainly don't disagree with ritter on anything he has to say, i'd like to know what the hell "repudiation" looks like and how it would be binding on anybody... saying "i repudiate" while all the measures that bushco has put in place (signing statements, executive orders, secret detention, warrantless domestic wiretapping, etc., etc.) are still alive and kicking, would only be a gesture of good faith, but would carry no mandate or consequences if not followed...

real "repudiation", imho, MUST be accompanied by an offical, legal, formal striking of the suspect signing statements, passing of legislation forbidding certain types of actions, other legislation repealing the frankenstein laws passed under bushco, and, most importantly, the application of real consequences, consequences with teeth, to the perpetrators of war crimes and constitutional breaches... repudiation in and of itself, while i certainly would like to hear it, particularly since it's something we're NOT hearing much of from anybody at the moment, is great, but unless that repudiation is built into the structure itself, backed up with the force of law and with serious consequences for failure to abide, it is only empty verbiage...

All the Texans gone but one? No big deal. Only 19% of George's term left.

so, rove is the only texan left...? no biggie, at least not if you swallow the la times spin...

[Dan Bartlett's] departure leaves only political advisor Karl Rove among the Texans who arrived in Washington with Bush and worked closely with him in the White House West Wing.

[...]

There has been a steady turnover within the White House in recent months, and Bartlett predicted that others would make similar moves "over the course of the summer."

The pattern is typical for two-term administrations in modern times. Many who have invested years working for a president look to move into more lucrative, and less time-consuming, private-sector jobs before their cachet as Washington insiders evaporates.

Bartlett's decision to leave underscores the growing challenge the president will face in the last 1 1/2 years of his administration.

< counts on toes, too > hmmmmm... not enough toes either... ok, there's 12 months in a year, so that must mean that a half a year has 6 months... 12 + 6 = 18... wow...! 18 months to go... that's a pretty long time... 8 years in two terms x 12 months in a year = 96 months... 18 divided by 96 = DAMN...! that's almost 19% of george's presidency left and THEY'RE ALL BAILING... well, i suppose they're right, it's just typical... or... could it be that george has become radioactive and everybody's getting out before the house comes down around their ears...?

Friday, June 01, 2007

Dear John Ashcroft, the pleasure of your company is requested

standard business attire... rsvp to john rockefeller or silvestre reyes...

The Senate and House Intelligence Committees are asking former attorney general John Ashcroft to testify about a March 2004 hospital-room confrontation during which he refused to sign off on a continuation of President Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program, according to congressional and administration sources.

The sources, who asked not to identified talking about sensitive matters, said the Senate Intelligence Committee has tentatively scheduled a closed-door hearing for later this month. The panel plans to question Ashcroft, his former chief of staff David Ayres and former deputy attorney general James Comey about a heated dispute with the White House that roiled the Justice Department three years ago. The House committee is also planning a separate closed-door hearing with Ashcroft, according to a spokeswoman for Ashcroft.

i find this encouraging for two reasons... one, i wondered when somebody was going to go after ashcroft... it seems he's got a lot to offer none of which he's shared... two, i'm glad to see the house and senate intelligence committees getting really cranked up in the oversight department... i definitely don't think silvestre reyes is the sharpest tack in the box, but maybe between him and rockefeller, they can put together a squeeze play... and, then again, maybe not... it does kinda sound like it might happen, tho'... if ashcroft and half of his gang were ready to resign as comey stated, john's got a lot o'splainin' to do...

Bush and Cheney may be unwilling to relinquish power to a successor administration

One wonders what Bush & Co. are setting up with the new Presidential Directive. What if, heaven forbid, some sort of catastrophic event were to occur just before the 2008 election? Bush could use this directive to suspend the election. This administration has gone to great lengths to remain in Iraq. It has built huge permanent military bases and pushed to privatize Iraq's oil. Bush and Cheney may be unwilling to relinquish power to a successor administration.

it's a question i frequently ask myself... it's a question we should ALL be asking...

"[T]he refusal to impeach would be a decision as momentous as impeachment itself."

[T]he refusal to impeach would be a decision as momentous as impeachment itself. It would and could be interpreted only as meaning that Congress does not think [the President] has done anything to warrant impeachment. It would alter the historic relationship of Presidential power to the constitutional system of accountability for the use of that power. The message our generation would send to posterity would be that [the President], whatever his other disasters, had conceived and established a new conception of Presidential accountability, and that his successors, so long as they take care to avoid the crudities of a Watergate burglary, can expect to inherent [the President's] conception of inherent Presidential authority and to wield the unshared power with which he will have endowed the Presidency. Failure to impeach would be a vindication of a revolutionary theory of Presidential accountability.

as i've said ad nauseam, it isn't about impeachment per se, it's about getting those criminals OUT OF OFFICE in the most expeditious manner possible before they do any more damage, which they're continuing to do as we sit here, glued to our computer screens...

Rove is in it up to his fat ass

where there's smoke, there's rove...

In the rough and tumble of Alabama politics, the scramble for power is often a blood sport. At the moment, the state's former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, stands convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges and faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Siegelman has long claimed that his prosecution was driven by politically motivated, Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys.

Now Karl Rove, the President's top political strategist, has been implicated in the controversy. A longtime Republican lawyer in Alabama swears she heard a top G.O.P. operative in the state say that Rove "had spoken with the Department of Justice" about "pursuing" Siegelman, with help from two of Alabama's U.S. attorneys.

it's vintage rove and ties right in with the use of the justice department as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the republican national committee, which, in turn, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the cabal installed by the scotus decision of 12 december 2000...time magazine has the rest... take a swig of pepto and go read it...

Iraq - a continuing litany of death

A radical Salafi group in Baghdad claimed to have killed two US embassy employees, a husband and a wife, after robbing them of large sums. The US embassy will only say that the two are missing. An AP cameraman was shot and killed on Thursday.

A massive suicide bombing of police recruits in the largely Sunni city of Fallujah west of Baghdad killed 30 and wounded 20 on Thursday, a day when Iraqi authorities announced that almost 100 persons were killed, found dead, or injured [Arabic] in political violence. (Western wire services appear to have put their stories to bed before the full scope of the carnage was apparent.] Five bodies turned up in Mosul; there was a bombing in Baghdad that killed 1 and wounded 3; at least 2 were killed by rocket fire in Tal Afar (link). 29 bodies showed up in Baghdad streets and a lecturer in Fine Arts was shot down in Basra (link).

Our constitutional crisis - nobody wants to call a spade a spade

So when Democratic presidential candidates get together, they argue about who has the best health-care plan. When Republicans have a big discussion, it's about torture and who'll use it when.

[...]

Our two political parties and their candidates are living in parallel universes. It's as if the candidates were running for president in two separate countries.

and herein lies the REAL problem...

The Democratic mind is focused on serious domestic problems, the Republican mind on terrorism and national security.

first of all, dionne totally omits any mention of iraq, arguably the priority issue in the public mind today... even worse, he fails to point out that nobody, NOBODY is stepping forward to call attention to the REAL issue, the one that subsumes all the others, namely our constitutional crisis... meanwhile, as the clock ticks slowly toward 20 january 2009, the gutting of that precious document continues unabated...

"This White House thinks its base is stupid." Now you know what it feels like, people.

the far-right, wingnut, ultra-conservative base wakes up to find out what the liberals and progressives have been subject to the past six and one-half years... and, of all people to point this out, peggy noonan, the crazed wsj op-ed writer...

The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

[...]

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."

while ms. noonan may not have truly seen the light, she's at least screwed her head back on tight enough to be able to take some steps in that direction...

Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time.

the temptation is to indulge in schadenfreude... well, more than indulge, more like positively revel... but that would be to make light of the situation... bush and his criminal compadres have cynically wooed, used, and manipulated the conservative base, a base they have shown they don't even like or trust, and now the base is waking up, and it looks like the immigration bill is what finally tipped over the apple cart... too bad it took so long...

Insistence on accountability for intelligence programs inches forward

i'm not even sure "inches" is the right term... seems to me this falls into the same category as subpoenas and the iraq war funding proposal... the administration is going to do what they goddam well please... any legislation that has provisions they don't like, they will taser congressional republicans into opposing, and then, if they actually do get passed, will simply obviate with a signing statement...

[T]he panel called for the president to make public the costs of the national programs whose budgets make up almost three-quarters of the roughly $48 billion proposed for intelligence collection and analysis next year.1

[A]ll panel members be notified of such briefings [the most sensitive operations, such as the warrentless domestic wiretapping involving terrorism suspects] and be told about the "main features" of such intelligence activities, including covert actions.

Joined the House in requiring a study of the impact of global climate change on national security.2

Increased the maximum penalty for intentionally disclosing the name of an undercover intelligence officer or agent from 10 to 15 years.

Required the president to provide all President's Daily Briefs that deal with Iraq, from the last four years of the Clinton administration through March 19, 2003, when the U.S.-led coalition began its invasion of that country.3

Called for presidential nomination and Senate approval of the deputy CIA director as well as the directors of the National Security Agency, which collects electronic intelligence; the National Reconnaissance Office, which designs, builds and manages intelligence-gathering satellites; and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which collects and analyzes imagery.4

Found that the number of personnel in the intelligence community has grown by 20 percent since the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and recommended that additional growth be halted pending further study.

"Power has made reality its bitch."

Here is my favorite quotation about the Bush administration, a description of a conversation with the proverbial "unnamed administration official" by the fine journalist Ron Suskind in October 2004:

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.' "

I must admit to you that I love that quotation. The unnamed official, widely believed to be Karl Rove, sketches out with breathtaking frankness a radical view in which power frankly determines reality, and in which rhetoric — the science of flounces and folderols — follows meekly and subserviently in its train. Those in the "reality-based community" are figures a mite pathetic, for we have failed to realize the singular new principle of the new age: Power has made reality its bitch.

Given such sweeping claims for power, it is hard to expect much respect for truth; or perhaps it should be "truth" — in quotation marks — for, when you can alter reality at will, why pay much attention to the idea of fidelity in describing it?

i have no doubt those words were uttered by karl rove... everything i know and have read about karl rove positively oozes that kind of staggering arrogance... my fondest wish is that, some day, karl's headstone will read, "i TRIED to make reality my bitch, but reality had her way with me in the end..."

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Call to action - post the Iraq Embassy photos all over the goddam blogosphere

On Tuesday, ThinkProgress highlighted photos of the U.S. embassy in Iraq, which is set to open in September. Projected to cost $592 million, the embassy will have a staff of 1,000 people and operating costs will total $1.2 billion a year. The complex will be 104 acres, which is the size of approximately 80 football fields.

[...]

According to news reports, “Some U.S. officials acknowledged that damage may have been done by the postings and used expletives to describe their personal reactions.” But what kind of damage has been done — damage to security or public relations?

ok, goddam it, if that's the game they want to play, i was first in line in the think progress post's comments section to volunteer to post the goddam pictures on this blog...

Where the government keeps stuff (like Flight 93) that they don't want you to see

well, well, well... this is fascinating... and how convenient that it's not too far from where flight 93 went down...

i stood on the tarmac at dulles airport the afternoon of 9/11 and bid farewell to united's emergency reponse team that was headed up to pennsylvania to the flight 93 crash site... i knew most of the people who were going because i worked with them on a daily basis... the really interesting part, to me at least, was talking to them when they got back...

for one thing, they were never allowed into the actual crash site, which i found most peculiar... after all, this was united's official emergency response team and the aircraft did belong to united... the most puzzling thing they told me was that there was a secondary crash site, some distance away from the primary crash site... to me, that could only mean one thing... the plane was already in at least two pieces BEFORE it hit the ground...

here's the piece that i think may explain it... earlier that day, i had reassigned myself to dulles lobby security... even though i was a staff guy, i had been an airport general manager, so i knew a thing or two, plus i couldn't see myself continung to sit at my desk when all hell was breaking loose elsewhere... besides dealing with all the people who suddenly found themselves in dulles airport rather than their final destination after their flights had been ordered out of the sky, there were a lot of police and fbi types running around trying to get information... since i was management, i got asked frequently to check flight data and passenger lists... the flight that was getting the most interest was flight 93... at one point i was told that we needed to be prepared to evacuate the airport because flight 93 was over southern pennsylvania and headed our way, but that they were preparing to shoot it down... ponder THAT for a while...

Suspicious of establishing a long-term presence in the Middle East? Ya THINK...?

The White House, long irritated by the frequent use of Vietnam as a metaphor for Iraq, embraced its own analogy yesterday: South Korea.

[...]

It's troubling because American troops have been in South Korea for more than 50 years -- while polls show the American public wants them out of Iraq within a year.

[...]

And it's telling because it gives credence to persistent suspicions that establishing a long-term strategic presence in the Middle East was a primary motivation for this misbegotten war in the first place.

anybody with two brain cells to rub together could have figured out that we went in to iraq to stay, and every single thing that's happened since has borne out that conclusion... i am with atrios 110%, we are going to be in iraq forever, as long as this crowd and their republican and democratic enablers in congress continue to have their way...

The Pentagon Better Think Twice

After Viet Nam, non-Veteran citizens didn't treat the Vets very well. Now it looks like the Govt that sent today's Vets to war will treat them poorly when they come home. All I can think to say to the Pentagon is.... you Two faced mutha #@#$%s.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (May 31) - An Iraq war veteran could lose his honorable discharge status after being photographed wearing fatigues at an anti-war protest. [...]Iraq veteran Adam Kokesh is scheduled to meet with a Pentagon panel Monday over his discharge from the Marines.

Marine Cpl. Adam Kokesh and other veterans marked the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq in April by wearing their uniforms - with military insignia removed - and roaming around the nation's capital on a mock patrol.

After Kokesh was identified in a photo cutline in The Washington Post, a superior officer sent him a letter saying he might have violated a rule prohibiting troops from wearing uniforms without authorization.

Kokesh, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, responded with an obscenity. Now, a military panel has been scheduled to meet with Kokesh on Monday to decide whether his discharge status should be changed from "honorable" to "other than honorable." "This is clearly a case of selective prosecution and intimidation of veterans who speak out against the war," Kokesh said. "To suggest that while as a veteran you don't have freedom of speech is absurd."

I wonder which draft dodging pinhead NeoCon came up with this idea?

Kokesh is part of the Individual Ready Reserve, a segment of the reserves that consists mainly of those who have left active duty but still have time remaining on their eight-year military obligations. His attorney, Mike Lebowitz, said Kokesh's IRR status ends June 18. He said at least three other veterans have been investigated because of their involvement at demonstrations. [...]Kokesh said he had reservations about Iraq even before the United States invaded, but wanted to go there to help rebuild schools and mosques after Saddam Hussein 's regime was toppled. He even learned Arabic. [...]Kokesh argues that he was not representing the military at the protest in Washington, and he made that clear by removing his name tag and other military insignia from his uniform.

Lebowitz said Kokesh technically is a civilian unless recalled to active duty and had the right to be disrespectful in his response to the officer. He called the proceedings against Kokesh highly unusual and said the military usually seeks to change a veteran's discharge status only if a crime has been committed. [...]"I love the Marine Corps," he said. "I always have loved the Marine Corps, and that is why I'm particularly offended to see it being used for political ends."

Of course he loves the Marine Corps. Anybody who can make it through that training program must be dedicated.Somebody better make sure these guys aren't attacked by the NeoCon hatchet men. They deserve our respect and thanks no matter what their current opinion is on the war,and Kerry better jump in on this issue. He has a lot in common with these kids.

i'm not necessarily looking for somebody to step forward and lead an impeachment effort, but i am damn sure looking for somebody to step forward and be willing to label the current situation in the united states for what it is, the most serious constitutional crisis in the nation's history...

Former US vice president Al Gore, a staunch critic of George W Bush, has said he doesn't agree with calls for impeaching the president due to lack of "time" and "consensus."

Many democrats feel that Bush should be impeached for allegedly misleading the country deliberately in the lead up to the war in Iraq.

"With a year and a half to go in his term and with no consensus in the nation as a whole to support such a proposition, any realistic analysis of that as a policy option would lead one to question the allocation of time and resources," Gore said during an interview with PBS.

Pressed on whether he believed that impeachment is a good use of time, Gore replied, "I don't think it is. I don't think it would be successful."

i don't really care whether or not he supports actual impeachment... what i do care a great deal about is that someone who purports to be a serious leader on the national level, whether or not he ends up running for president, can stand before the citizens of this country and call a spade a spade... al obviously isn't going to do that... furthermore, in the same interview, when he was given a SECOND opportunity to label what has taken place since the 12 december 2000 scotus decision, he said this...

On being asked whether he threw the towel in too soon in the 2000 presidential elections, where he narrowly lost to Bush, Gore said he had taken the fight as far as he could, and the only other option left was a "violent revolution".

"I took it all the way to a final Supreme Court decision. And in our system, there is no intermediate step between a final Supreme Court decision and violent revolution. So, at that point, having taken it as far as one could, then the question becomes, are we going to be a nation of laws and not people?" Gore replied.

"Do I support the rule of law, even though I disagree with the Supreme Court's decision? I did disagree with it, and I think that those of us who disagreed with it will have the better of the argument in history," he added.

let me ask you, al... if you were standing in shit up to your eyeballs, would you call it shit or would you call it "inconvenient...?"

Is Bush getting close to "little men in white coats" time?

hmmmmm... could be...

What's more, there is not much real give in the administration's policies. True, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other American diplomats met Memorial Day weekend with the Iranians in Baghdad (a good first move but limited, since the Iranians have most of the power because of our incredible stupidity in Iraq). But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."

it's certainly been clear that bush sees iraq as u.s. "destiny" and that, if he has his way, the u.s. will never, ever leave, but pounding himself on the chest and repeating "i am the president...?" oooooooo... not good...

Pattern recognition, conspiracy theory, and the Bush administration

i am so sick and tired of people (like me, for instance) who see larger patterns and look beyond the micro of day-to-day events perenially discounted when the patterns they see emerging are potentially disastrous... the patterns exhibited by the united states during the time i have been an observer (going on 40 years) have been disturbing at best, but the patterns that have emerged since i have been a CLOSE observer (since 1995), and a VERY CLOSE observer (since 2000), are positively frightening...

let me be clear... i see a real difference between conspiracy theorists and those who recognize patterns... conspiracy theorists, i believe, have a profoundly negative and, to be blunt, paranoid worldview... they LOOK for things to be wrong... people with pattern recognition skills, on the other hand, look for things that FIT... they try very hard to make connections, to see how one puzzle piece fits with another...

pattern recognition isn't a very rewarding skill on which to base a career... i know that because i've been attempting to do it all my life without what i would call great success... in organizations, people with pattern recognition skills could be valued for being able to grasp and articulate the reality of the big-picture organizational environment... i say "could" because most organizations, as most societies, live either in a state of ignorance or a state of willful denial about the reality of their dynamics, and those who attempt to describe those dynamics with clarity and accuracy are rarely welcomed by senior management, the very ones who could most benefit from their skills... most often, the organization either marginalizes those people by putting them in positions where they can do "no harm," or by simply grinding them up and spitting them out...

which brings us to the current day, 2007, in the united states... there are a few of us - damn few - who look at the macro pattern of what has been taking place since the coup d'etat was ratified by the 12 december 2000 scotus decision, and see an extremely disturbing picture... a great many of my posts are created precisely to highlight various pieces of that picture... i have learned the hard way that, for those who are not of the pattern recognition persuasion, there is a strong tendency to dismiss our macro descriptions as conspiracy theory... there was a tut-tut, pooh-pooh post in daily kos just the other day that, with barely veiled ridicule, took issue with those waiting for "black helicopters..." well, be that as it may, i still believe the united states is teetering on the edge of a very dark abyss...

rather than attempt to re-visit all of my previous rants and raves on this subject, let me refer you to a current daily kos diary by cskendrick, entitled "Why It's Now or Never, Right Now, For The Republic..." had i the time or the patience, i might have written it myself, albeit in my own inimitable style... it's a bit long, but i strongly recommend you read it in full... it's an excellent summary of precisely where i think we are at today in the united states...

Wolfie revises history and lies through his teeth about El Salvador

WOLFOWITZ: Maybe it was — look, maybe I could have done it differently. Maybe I could have consulted more. Maybe if it weren’t me and somebody else doing it, look, I’ve said from the beginning…

ROSE: Somebody who’s not an architect of the war, and all that.

WOLFOWITZ: I’m not an architect of anything, but somebody who is not so closely associated with a controversial Iraq policy, yes.

stand up and take it like a man, you sorry sack of shit... and, while you're at it, stay the hell away from the airwaves so we don't have to experience your barely-concealed pose as victim... you were in the thick of it and, if there is any justice in this world, you will be called to account...

and, oh, by the way, how dare you present the horrible slaughter in el salvador, perpetrated by a military that received its training at u.s. hands (see below), as something that turned out for the better...

Comparing Iraq to El Salvador, Wolfowitz said, “El Salvador fought a terrible, terrible civil war for more than 10 years. … And today El Salvador is one of the most successful economies in Central America.”

the denial and outright lying are positively breathtaking... but, brace yourselves... this is revisionist history at its finest and there'll be a lot more comin' atcha...

The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States changed American policy in El Salvador dramatically. The new U.S. administration worried about Communist expansion in Central America and viewed the El Salvador military government as a potential barrier against Communism. The Reagan administration substantially increased both military and economic aid to El Salvador.

The civil war raged on in El Salvador, fueled by U.S. aid to the Salvadoran military. The government harshly repressed dissent, and at least 70,000 people lost their lives in killings and bombing raids waged against civilians throughout the countryside. The country's infrastructure had crumbled, and the nation appeared to be no closer to its goals of peace, prosperity and social justice than when the process began. Then, in 1989, the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America shocked the international community into action.

and, i wouldn't exactly say that el salvador is among "the most successful economies in central america" either... for one thing, they've got a terrible gang problem, fueled by the deportation of numerous salavadoran gang members from the u.s...

Officials from these three countries have long complained that U.S. deportation policy exacerbates the gang problem. Poor cooperation and information-sharing has made it impossible to know whether deportees, arriving by the planeload, are criminals or not. There are known cases of notorious criminals passing through the revolving door of deportation that, if anything, gives them the chance to acquire new identities and evade prosecution.

yep, wolfie is quite skilled at talking out of his asshole and expecting our dumbed-down citizenry to buy it...

The new ownership of the LA Times is proud to bring you - NEOCONS!

what a great way to start the day... i open up the la times email headlines only to find that two out of three of the featured op-eds are written by neocons, pleasuring themselves by writing about war... yeah, i know, that's how neocons get themselves off, but, doggone it, they really should be doing it in the privacy of their own bedrooms...

Iraq desperately needs a political solution in the short term to make the war more manageable for the next president.

[...]

The Nixon administration was convinced that it had achieved a decent opportunity for the people of South Vietnam to determine their own fate; that the Saigon government would be able to overcome ordinary violations of the agreement with its own forces; that the U.S. would assist against an all-out attack; and that, over time, the South Vietnamese government would be able to build a functioning society.

American disunity was a major element in dashing these hopes. Watergate fatally weakened the Nixon administration through its own mistakes, and the 1974 midterm congressional elections brought to power the most unforgiving of Nixon's opponents, who cut off aid so the agreement couldn't work as planned. The imperatives of domestic debate took precedence over geopolitical necessities.

[...]

A political settlement has to be distilled from the partly conflicting, partly overlapping views of the Iraqi parties, Iraq's neighbors and other affected states, based on a conviction that the caldron of Iraq would otherwise overflow and engulf everybody. The essential prerequisite is staying power in the near term. President Bush owes it to his successor to make as much progress toward this goal as possible; not to hand the problem over but to reduce it to more manageable proportions. What we need most is a rebuilding of bipartisanship in both this presidency and in the next.

oh, ya gotta love henry... he sounds so very, very erudite and professorial as he reminds us of his vast reservoir in the management of u.s. involvement in other countries' civil wars, gained in vietnam, yet ANOTHER war criminal escapade, where we ALSO shouldn't have been in the first goddam place... then he has the unmitigated gall to propose a diplomatic initiative, based on - put your hands over the kids' ears - BIPARTISANSHIP, so the NEXT PRESIDENT will have an easier go... great god almighty in heaven above... henry really needs to wake up and smell the coffee... it makes no difference whatsoever how much bush may posture over "political settlements" and "bipartisanship..." he has proven in countless ways that he is indeed only posturing... we may be talking to iran and he may be looking twice at the iraq study group report, but those are only red-herring tactics, buying time while the u.s. presence in iraq becomes ever more entrenched, which, of course, is precisely the plan... you'll notice that the one thing he DOESN'T discuss is getting the hell out - permanently - preferring instead to leave it to us to decide what he means by the oh-so-academic term "geopolitical necessities..." bite me, henry...

and, as if that wasn't bad enough, then we have max boot as colonel klink, implying that the current horror in iraq would be going ever so much better if we sacked some of those incompetent lieutenant colonels and colonels who "simply aren't effective leaders or who consistently fail to achieve results" and replace them with blood-and-guts, patton-types... i won't even go there...

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Post-thunderstorm sunset, high desert, 8:16 p.m. PDT, 30 May

towards later afternoon, i noticed some thunderheads building up over the eastern sierra foothills... they didn't look too serious, but they were nice to see after the endless procession of sunny, dry, and windy days that are the norm around here... then, to my surprise, lo and behold, for about 45 minutes between 7 and 8, we had an honest-to-god thunderstorm, lightning flashing, thunder booming, fat raindrops falling, and even a little hail... naturally, the temperature dropped about 15 degrees as well... i stuck my nose out the back door after it was over to smell the wet sage, one of my all-time favorite smells, before heading back inside to - where else? - the laptop... suddenly, one of the grandsons was banging on my door, hollering, "grandpa, grandpa, come see the sunset..." so, here ya are... enjoy...

according to raw story, griffin is going to work for the fred thompson campaign... good riddance...

"His departure from the US Attorney Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas is a positive development and the Senator is looking forward to having credible leadership restored there," said Michael Teague, spokesman for Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR), of reports that interim US Attorney Tim Griffin had been approached to join Thompson's campaign.

His comments came in an intense interview aboard Air Force One with McClatchy Newspapers. "I'm deeply concerned about America losing its soul," Bush said. "Immigration has been the lifeblood of a lot of our country's history." He added: "If we don't solve the problem it's going to affect America. It will affect our economy and it will affect our soul."

the first one is the easiest... bush is worrying about the nation "losing its soul...?" oh, c'mon, or, should i say, "OH, REALLY...!" the president who has presided over the most debasing, hate-filled, homophobic, religiously intolerant, race-baiting, accusatory, polarizing six and one-half years in the nation's history is worried about the nation losing its soul... < sigh > george bush must be the least self-examined man on the face of the earth...

Staffers at McClatchy's Washington, D.C., Bureau -- one of the few major news outlets skeptical of intelligence reports during the run-up to the war in Iraq -- claims it is now being punished for that coverage.

Bureau Chief John Walcott and current and former McClatchy Pentagon correspondents say they have not been allowed on the Defense Secretary's plane for at least three years, claiming the news company is being retaliated against for its reporting.

"It is because our coverage of Iraq policy has been quite critical," Walcott told E&P. He added, "I think the idea of public officials barring coverage by people they've decided they don't like is at best unprofessional, at worst undemocratic and petty."

i find it extremely ironic (or, should i say, "OH, REALLY!") that mcclatchy just happens to be the featured press outlet for this story... you can't tell me it's a coincidence...

Blogger masturbation

ya know, i don't know how many take-downs of the bush administration i've seen, what with maher, olbermann, jon stewart, etc., and, for the most part, they're all right on... i'm starting to feel, maybe more than just starting, like we're all engaged in verbal/blogger masturbation... yeah, i put up a post, watch a youtube clip, comment on somebody else's blog, it relieves tension, gets it out of my system for a while, but, ultimately, it's very unfulfilling... dontcha think it's about time something actually HAPPENS...? i don't know if i can sit here much longer, watching the slow dissolution of my country before my very eyes... but, god help me, i don't know what else i can do... i don't trust the political system any more at all... even getting a few good candidates elected doesn't begin to address the massive changes that need to happen... i guess it's just one of those days, altho' they seem to be coming more and more often lately...

A clear statement of war-lust without apology or reservation

i no doubt exceeded the "fair use" guideline for raw story and perhaps even the original source, the wall street journal, in posting this excerpt... however, such a baldface declaration of one person's belief in destruction, violence, and death as a primary solution to whatever world problems we face, a belief no doubt shared deep in the bones of his fellow neocons, deserves a fuller treatment...

[T]he plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force--any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938.

[...]

Since a ground invasion of Iran must be ruled out for many different reasons, the job would have to be done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air strikes. Furthermore, because Iran's nuclear facilities are dispersed, and because some of them are underground, many sorties and bunker-busting munitions would be required. And because such a campaign is beyond the capabilities of Israel, and the will, let alone the courage, of any of our other allies, it could be carried out only by the United States. Even then, we would probably be unable to get at all the underground facilities, which means that, if Iran were still intent on going nuclear, it would not have to start over again from scratch. But a bombing campaign would without question set back its nuclear program for years to come, and might even lead to the overthrow of the mullahs.

[Bush] intends, within the next 21 months, to order air strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities from the three U.S. aircraft carriers already sitting nearby....If this is what Mr. Bush intends to do, it goes, or should go, without saying that his overriding purpose is to ensure the security of this country in accordance with the vow he took upon becoming president, and in line with his pledge not to stand by while one of the world's most dangerous regimes threatens us with one of the world's most dangerous weapons.

It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.

Norman Podhoretz

look at that face... he should be bouncing a grandchild on his knee or volunteering to read stories to a kindergarten class, not urging our president to bomb another country...

try as i might, i simply cannot get into this guy's head to gain an appreciation of his thinking... first of all, i am unable to relate to being an advocate for bombing ANYTHING... violence and destruction are never a solution, never have been, and never will be... moreover, in the case of iran, regardless of the rationale for bombing, there is no question in my mind that such an action would only serve to add to the growing conflagration in the middle east, and guarantee that the world war IV podhoretz believes is already underway will engulf the entire region for years to come...

Although many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what Sept 11, 2001, did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the Cold War was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II.

i am at a loss to imagine how one's thinking, particularly over the course of a lifetime, where we supposedly gain the wisdom of age, can become so darkly twisted... i also fail to comprehend how such a man, a man who is passionately urging that bombs be dropped, continues to influence those in power... never mind... obviously, the ones in power HAVE their power because they think the same way... it's just us bystanders who are left scratching our heads...

p.s. describing bush as being "battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular", is so deliciously delusionary, it would be hard to top... but then, podhoretz, as a member of the council on foreign relations, one of the groups responsible for installing bush as president in the first place, would, i suppose, be naturally defensive of his choice...

Are there any consequences at all for the White House Press Secretary to tell outright lies?

In February of this year, Tony Snow chatted with Bill O'Reilly and said this (h/t Zack):

Very quickly -- very quickly, you got this Valerie Plame case. Now, it turns out that [special counsel] Peter (sic: Patrick) Fitzgerald doesn't -- can't even identify any harm. She wasn't a covert agent. She wasn't compromised. . . She wasn't covert anymore.

Are there any consequences at all for the White House Press Secertary to tell outright lies like that? Does that prompt any media scandals? Why can Tony Snow say with impunity that Plame "wasn't a covert agent" when their own CIA confirms that she was?

this is only another reminder, as if we needed any, that the bush administration and its sycophants will say whatever they believe is necessary to maintain the wall of protection around the presidency... they have lenin's strategy down to a fine art...

"This administration, I've never seen an organization that learned the lessons of Lenin as clearly as these guys," said Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) ... . "These guys must tack up Lenin's philosophy on their bedstand every night. Particularly when Lenin suggested if you say something often enough, with enough conviction, everybody will believe it."

greenwald continues...

Many people who listen to right-wing commentators such as these get their "news" about the world primarily, even exclusively, from these sources. And these sources, knowing that, routinely create their own self-affirming though wildly warped realities, in the process denying the most established facts or asserting propositions for which there is no factual basis.

[...]

But, as they so often do, they [make] them anyway, because those statements [help] to defend the Leader and bolster their political agenda. Most of all, they know that their readers will trust what they say even when those statements are demonstrably false.

In an April poll, Harris found that President Bush's popularity had sunk to the lowest level of his presidency, with 28% of U.S. adults giving his job performance positive ratings and 70% rating him negatively.

why is george bush still our president...? what can we do TOMORROW to get him out...?

The VA doesn't track the suicides of Iraq war vets

i'm astounded... after the miserable record accumulated over the treatment of vietnam war vets, all the problems they experienced (and are still experiencing - i speak first-hand), i am dumbfounded that suicides of iraq war vets are not being tracked...

"We don’t keep that data," said Karen Fedele, a VA spokeswoman in Washington. "I’m told that somebody here is going to do an analysis, but there just is nothing right now."

The Defense Department does track suicides, but only among troops in combat operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan and in surrounding areas. Since the war started four years ago, 107 suicides during Iraq operations have been recorded by the Defense Manpower Data Center, which collects data for the Pentagon. That number, however, usually does not include troops who return home from the war zone and then take their lives.

what this clearly says is that a suicide is only meaningful if a cog in the war machine has to be replaced... when you're no longer actively a part of the war machine, who the hell cares...

“It far outclassed what we’ve done,” said Steven M. Kleinman, a former Air Force interrogator and trainer, who has studied the World War II program of interrogating Germans. The questioners at Fort Hunt, Va., “had graduate degrees in law and philosophy, spoke the language flawlessly,” and prepared for four to six hours for each hour of questioning, said Mr. Kleinman, who wrote two chapters for the December report.

Mr. Kleinman, who worked as an interrogator in Iraq in 2003, called the post-Sept. 11 efforts “amateurish” by comparison to the World War II program, with inexperienced interrogators who worked through interpreters and had little familiarity with the prisoners’ culture.

now, take a look at how what we claim has been so "valuable" came about...

[A CIA] spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said the program “has generated a rich volume of intelligence that has helped the United States and other countries disrupt terrorist activities and save innocent lives.”

He said the agency’s interrogators were “seasoned, well trained, and have the linguistic resources they need,” and added: “The agency learned terrorist interrogation after 9/11, but — based on the effectiveness of this fully legal program — it learned it well.”

A. B. Krongard, who was the executive director of the C.I.A., the No. 3 post at the agency, from 2001 to 2004, agreed with that assessment but acknowledged that the agency had to create an interrogation program from scratch in 2002.

He said officers quickly consulted counterparts in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries to compile a “catalog” of techniques said to be effective against Arab and Muslim prisoners. They added other methods drawn from those that American troops were trained to withstand in case of capture.

I was chatting with God just this morning

DeLay says that when, in the coming years, he is not fighting the indictment in Texas (he insists that he is not guilty) he will be building a conservative grass-roots equivalent of MoveOn.org. “God has spoken to me,” he said. “I listen to God, and what I’ve heard is that I’m supposed to devote myself to rebuilding the conservative base of the Republican Party, and I think we shouldn’t be underestimated.”

i was chatting with god earlier today... we got to laughing about one thing and another and i asked him what he thought of tom delay... without hesitation, he said, "he's one of the larger assholes around..." after i picked myself up off the floor and had finished wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes, i asked him why he was being so judgmental when he always advised others not to judge, lest we be judged ourselves... he chuckled and said, "i never said i was perfect..."

Libby's lies threw Fitz off Cheney's trail

Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has made it clearer than ever that he was hot on the trail of a coordinated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame until that line of investigation was cut off by the repeated lies from Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

[...]

Fitzgerald quotes the Libby defense calling his prosecution "unwarranted, unjust, and motivated by politics." In responding to that charge, the special counsel evidently felt obliged to put Libby's crime in context. And that context is Dick Cheney.

Libby's lies, Fitzgerald wrote, "made impossible an accurate evaluation of the role that Mr. Libby and those with whom he worked played in the disclosure of information regarding Ms. Wilson's CIA employment and about the motivations for their actions."

It was established at trial that it was Cheney himself who first told Libby about Plame's identity as a CIA agent, in the course of complaining about criticisms of the administration's run-up to war leveled by her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. And, as Fitzgerald notes: "The evidence at trial further established that when the investigation began, Mr. Libby kept the Vice President apprised of his shifting accounts of how he claimed to have learned about Ms. Wilson's CIA employment."

The investigation, Fitzgerald writes, "was necessary to determine whether there was concerted action by any combination of the officials known to have disclosed the information about Ms. Plame to the media as anonymous sources, and also whether any of those who were involved acted at the direction of others. This was particularly important in light of Mr. Libby's statement to the FBI that he may have discussed Ms. Wilson's employment with reporters at the specific direction of the Vice President."

in case that didn't quite sink in, froomkin goes on...

Not clear on the concept yet? Fitzgerald adds: "To accept the argument that Mr. Libby's prosecution is the inappropriate product of an investigation that should have been closed at an early stage, one must accept the proposition that the investigation should have been closed after at least three high-ranking government officials were identified as having disclosed to reporters classified information about covert agent Valerie Wilson, where the account of one of them was directly contradicted by other witnesses, where there was reason to believe that some of the relevant activity may have been coordinated, and where there was an indication from Mr. Libby himself that his disclosures to the press may have been personally sanctioned by the Vice President."

All we want are resignations...

Beijing: A Chinese court sentenced the former head of the food and drug agency, Zheng Xiaoyu, to death on Tuesday, a move that comes at a time when Beijing is struggling to quell a wave of scandals pertaining to fake and adulterated medicines and food.

[...]

According to the official Chinese news agency Xinhua, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Zheng to death after convicting him of taking bribes in cash and gifts worth more than 6.5 million yuan ($832,000) between 1998 and 2005, when he was director of the State Food and Drug Administration. Zheng's sentence is open to appeal.

Xinhua said that in exchange for the bribes, Zheng turned a blind eye to malpractices by relatives and subordinate officials (emphasis added)), approving the production of untested drugs and lowering the quality standards pharmaceutical companies needed to meet in order to obtain relevant approvals.

Sounds like a report on DC behavior, doesn't it?

I have always been willing to accept the resignations of corrupt, treasonous, public officials. Get out, and we will move on from there.

However, the Chinese may be on to something. Perhaps we should levy much more stern penalties. How about death for killing soldiers? Life in prison for selling off US assets? Hard labor for raping the Middle Class? And my personal favorite, forfeiture of all personal assets when caught taking bribes,? Ouch, Baby!

Zoellick nominated to replace Wolfie

at least robert zoellick has credentials that won't send the bank member nations, particularly the european ones, into a hissy fit, altho' i suspect they're not going to be happy that bush has nominated another administration insider, even if he happens to be a former, slightly disaffected one...

More on Cindy Sheehan

I can not believe this selfish coward moron can say that she is the face of America; anti or pro war! All she is is a women who had nothing and found fame through her brave son's death. He should be recognized and acknowledged not this idiot! She has the balls to say she is the "voice" believe me Ciny you ARE NOT! Especially, not the voice of military moms! You got played by the ones you thought were backing you and now you feel consumed...give me a break! You were a bad mother, but tried to come off as a good one. Your son died to give you the freedom to do all that you have done the last 4-5 years! You should thank him! Please leave and never come back because not only do you not love this country we do not love you!

clearly you are entitled to whatever opinion you would like about cindy sheehan the person, and i am not qualified to make any claims about her personal motives either in support or rebuttal... i do think, however, that you miss the entire point...

cindy sheehan, like her or hate her, made an indelible impact on the national discussion about iraq... after she so forcefully commandeered the national stage, it was no longer possible to sit back and cluck our tongues over troop casualties... as a nation, we had to face the brutal fact that our sons and daughters were dying in a war that was begun on a series of lies, lies that our troops continue to die for to this day...

i don't know cindy sheehan and i doubt if i will ever know cindy sheehan... in fact, i'm reasonably sure i don't WANT to know cindy sheehan... however, i totally respect her for what she's done, and what she's done stands regardless of her personal motivations for doing it... moreover, my respect for our president, never much above zero at the best of times, completely and totally evaporated over his refusal to even meet with her... such a meeting, in fact, despite all the spin to the contrary, would have allowed george to don a human face for a change and might just have convinced a few who, like me, are convinced that he is nothing but a poor quality, audioanimatronic facsimile of a human being, who is trotted out whenever the real rulers of our country need someone to play the president... whatever else you can say about cindy sheehan, she never presented herself as less than human...

It's winter down south

How Porteños dresswhen the temperaturehits the 30s

i usually follow the weather forecasts and temperatures in buenos aires whether or not i happen to be in residence there... as summer comes here to the high desert and the daily average high temperature climbs toward the 90s, i've noticed that buenos aires has experienced some unusually cold nights of late... the average low nighttime temperature during the winter there is usually in the low 40s, occasionally hitting the upper 30s... during the day, it's customarily in the 50s or low 60s... the past few days or so, i've noticed it getting down to 34-35 at night and thought of all the people i know there who would be complaining about how miserably cold it's been... little did i know, and it isn't even winter yet...

Power was rationed in parts of the Argentine capital and four people died from exposure as autumn temperatures dipped below freezing across a wide swath of Argentina on Tuesday morning.

needless to say, most of the buildings there aren't constructed for that kind of temperature... over in bariloche, however, where winter is winter, they build accordingly...

Why the Iraq debate is a sham

the bush administration has no desire to stamp out terrorism... conflict, violence, terrorism, war and death have all been very, very good assets in support of the two items that have topped the administration's agenda since day one - power and money... the longer the u.s. remains in iraq (which could safely be said was the plan from the beginning), the more desperate the insurgency will become, the more people will join up to be trained and to fight, and the more those now experienced trainees will be exported to stir up trouble elsewhere... the longer the u.s. remains in iraq, the more permanent the permanent bases and the more entrenched the u.s. embassy complex and its extended tentacles will become... the longer the u.s. remains in iraq, the more money will continue flow to bush's corporate cronies and the military industrial complex...

all that's happening now is posturing and gaming, making it look like there's some sort of debate, when, in fact, there isn't... and it's working wonderfully well... polls are taken, opinions voiced, blogs and op-eds written, legislation crafted, votes counted, vetos cast, candidates positions staked out, accusations hurled, loyalties pledged, and huge amounts of media time devoted to what is basically an empty exercise... but, what's important is that we're made to FEEL as though we have a voice, that congress can fill its role as a separate but equal branch of government, that we as citizens can actually override the power and money interests who are the people that are really calling the shots...

so, while we're distracted and barking at the moon (which comes to full this week, btw), the relentless march to the one-party, authoritarian state continues unabated, gonzales remains in charge of politicizing the justice department, executive orders are issued authorizing the president to take control of all three branches of government in an emergency, signing statements are written, "enhanced interrogation" techniques are practiced, recess appointments are made, habeas remains among the missing, military tribunals are conducted, draconian legislation like the intellectual property protection act of 2007 is proposed that calls for making the download and use of pirated software a crime punishable by life imprisonment, and the constitution is repeatedly gutted...

CNN starts what I hope will be a trend

i subscribed to cnn pipeline in the middle of bush's announcement of rumsfeld's resignation... i was in buenos aires at the time and realized how much i needed to have immediate, reliable, live news streaming... i'm not a big fan of cnn, particularly cnn u.s. domestic service... cnn international is significantly better, but even that's not saying a lot...

now, cnn pipeline is dropping it's subscription charges and converting to free service... that's a good thing and i'm wondering when other services like msnbc will do the same... without a doubt, video streamed directly to your computer screen is the wave of the future... i've long anticipated everything going into one pipe and this is a step closer to that reality...

Liberals and progressives "untroubled by debate and dissent"?

i never cease to marvel how dramatically some folks who, by virtue of their positions (in this case at a think tank, stanford's hoover institution), i thought would have their fingers much more on the pulse of the nation, don't... this hoover guy, peter berkowitz, writing in the wall street journal, seems particularly clueless...

On a variety of issues that currently divide the nation, those to the left of center seem to be converging, their ranks increasingly untroubled by debate or dissent, except on daily tactics and long-term strategy. Meanwhile, those to the right of center are engaged in an intense intra-party struggle to balance competing principles and goods.

i don't know what he's smoking, but to say that the left isn't a cauldron of debate is flat-out wrong... the past few weeks, especially after the horror of the betrayal by the democratic leadership on the iraq war funding bill, have tossed liberals and progressives into an all-out civil war with their elected democratic leadership, and i can't see how he can write as if he's blissfully unaware of that... just listen to him blather on...

Democrats today are nearly united in the belief that the invasion has been a fiasco and that we must withdraw promptly. Indeed, rare is the Democrat (Sen. Joe Lieberman was compelled to run as an Independent) who does not sound like a traditional realist denying both America's moral obligation to remain in Iraq and its capacity to bring order to the country.

oh, well... i can only conclude that working in a conservative think tank and associating with only like-minded colleagues leaves you unprepared to confront the messy world of reality...

If you're gonna smear, do it in a bipartisan spirit

The would-be president and former ambulance chaser wants you to think he's the champion of the underclass.

There's a little hustler in every politician. But sometimes there's a little politician in a hustler. Such is the case with John Edwards.

and that's just the title,the teaser and the opening sentence...

i felt moved to compose a letter to the la times editor...

Dear Sirs:

I can see how the 2008 campaign is going to shape up - hyperventilating huffers and puffers, sitting in their foxholes, tossing out feces-laden grenades, and hoping none either roll back into their holes or get lobbed their way. Ok, if that's the kind of opinion writer you choose to support, so be it. Let me make a small request.

I would feel somewhat better about seeing such vituperation in print if the opinion writer in question, Mr. Goldberg, would opine in a more bipartisan fashion. It seems there are hypocrites and idiots galore in the current field of presidential candidates, both Democrat and Republican. When entire op-ed columns are dedicated to savaging only one party's candidates, serious editorial bias starts to become a little bit obvious, don't you think? Even George Bush occasionally makes the effort to appear bipartisan (I emphasize the word "appear"). Couldn't you encourage Mr. Goldberg to follow suit?

Best regards,

i didn't deliberately didn't offer any examples of idiots and hypocrites from the "other party" because i think they are ridiculously easy to find... how about rudy giuliani, mitt romney, and john mccain for starters...?

Here’s the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a “movement” that “has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he should be treated as a lunatic.

When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West,” he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.

And when John McCain says that Osama, who isn’t in Iraq, will “follow us home” if we leave, he should be laughed at.

so, jonah, whaddaya say...? lessee you take a crack at these idiots as well... it seems to me that you could have yourself a veritable bipartisan vituperation feast (if you want to, that is)...

Monday, May 28, 2007

Memorial Day photoblogging - Plumas National Forest, California

it's been a gorgeous day and we spent most of it up in the plumas national forest above graeagle, california... there's nothing quite like being up in the high mountains to renew the soul and offer a little bit of perspective on things, and today accomplished both of those quite nicely...

The Wednesday through Friday meeting was a success, with 22 additional nations joining the process of drafting an international convention to ban cluster bombs, which began in February in Oslo, Norway and is to conclude in late 2008, said Peruvian Deputy Defence Minister Fabián Novak.

That brings the total number of countries involved in the process to 68. The convention would be similar to the Mine Ban Treaty, which bans anti-personnel land mines.

"We have taken sure steps towards a legal instrument aimed at protecting human beings, which would prohibit the use, production and storage of cluster munitions," Novak told IPS. "That is demonstrated by the increase in the number of nations that have adhered to the process that began in Oslo."

"At the next regional meeting, in Costa Rica, a sister country that backs Peru's proposal, we will build a consensus to turn Latin America into the first region free of cluster bombs," he said.

[...]

Cluster bombs are dropped in a canister that splits open in mid-air, scattering hundreds of soda-can-size bomblets over wide areas. The bombs can be either air-dropped or ground-launched, and are difficult to target accurately. Between five and 30 percent of the bomblets do not explode on impact, posing a risk to civilians for years to come.

cluster bombs and land mines are horrible weapons, right up there with nukes as things that only someone with a truly demented view of the world could dream up... of course they will continue to exist, but that doesn't mean they can't be forbidden and eradicated to the maximum extent possible...

unfortunately, i learned something i didn't know, and, as one who lives part-time in argentina, was distressed to find out, particularly since argentina is proposing an exception for themselves...

Argentina, one of the Latin American nations that manufactures and stores cluster bombs, backed a proposal by Australia, Finland, France and Poland to include an exception in the international convention for countries that produce bombs with a self-destruct mechanism.

The Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), made up of 200 organisations pushing for a total ban, is vigorously opposed to the proposed exceptions.

Director of the Human Rights Watch Arms Division Steve Goose told IPS that trusting the self-destruct mechanisms of cluster bombs is akin to believing that it makes them less lethal, which he said is absolutely false.

and, of course, my own country could hardly be expected to support such a rational initiative...

[T]he United States, which is not taking part in the process, wants cluster bombs to be discussed within the framework of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). But during the debates in Lima, most of the participating nations rejected that proposition, arguing that the CCW is ineffective and burdened by red tape.

U.S. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Jody Williams remarked to IPS that she was not surprised that countries that produce and use cluster bombs are the very countries that are applying pressure for the question to be discussed under the CCW.

Williams, who headed up the movement that led to the signing of the Mine Ban Treaty against land mines, said that in November 2006, the countries that form part of the CCW rejected an initiative to launch negotiations aimed at banning cluster munitions.

So, she asked, "what can we expect" from that forum? Besides, noted the activist, the countries most heavily affected by cluster bombs do not form part of the CCW.